POVERTY REVISED

Pradhan H Prasad

The
most significant and scientific statement1 in the context of poverty in India
was made by Jawaharlal Nehru as back as in 1929, ‘‘If we are to eradicate
poverty, we must first do away with this widespread unemployment’’2. In view
of this Gandhi and many others had emphasized development of agriculture
through widespread expansion of irrigation and rapid expansion of small,
village, household and cottage industries along with the growth of petty
trading so as to generate widespread employment3. Gandhi's assertion about
‘‘The need for providing irrigation facilities to all villages’’ was no less
scientific. To suggest that these were retrograde approaches to India’s
progress meant a poor understanding of competence of scientific advancement
to enhance productivity of labour in a largely labour intensive technological
syndrome5. The administrative system which was perceived to take India along
this path of progress was a federal structure of democratic and autonomous
village and ward panchayats6. This was supposed to involve masses directly
with democratic process of development. But the British imperialism was on a
completely different wavelength.

The
civil administrative system which was created by the British, had its
paramount objective of governance through terror so that Indians may dare not
even think of protest (let alone the act of protest) against British rule and
its exploitative practices. That is why Gandhi did not find it ‘‘particularly
useful to the country’’ and Jawaharlal Nehru found it as ‘‘the most
inefficent body of service in the world’’. The elections which were initiated
under the Government of India Act, 1935, were designed to boost corruption,
increasing use of muscle and money power

muscle and money power and a
low level of consciousness among the elected ones which would play a role of
an accessory rather than of a political master, to the non-elected
bureaucracy of the colonial system of administration. Jawaharalal Nehru had
perceived some aspects of this nefarious design which is evident from his
letter written to Gandhi on August 13,1934, where he says, ‘‘The leading
figures of the Congress suddenly became those people who had obstructed us,
held us back, kept aloof from the struggle and even co-operated with the
opposite party in the time of our direct need. They became the high priests
in our temple of freedom and many a brave soldier who had shouldered the
burden in the heat and dust of the fray, was not allowed in the temple
preciencts’’. It was the crafy manner of introduction of the phony democracy
by the British imperialism and the low key of the struggle which created such
a turbulence in the Congress.

Churchill and his colleagues had realized, following the
outbreak of Second World War that India could not be held under military
occupation of Britain for long and therefore they decided, at the same time,
to salvage what they could out of the wreckage.